CWC boss poised for top NTL job

NTL will appoint Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) marketing chief Janet Somerville to the new position of consumer marketing director if its &£8.2bn bid for CWC is approved by regulators.

The appointment would put Somerville in charge of consumer marketing at the UK’s largest cable TV and telephony brand. She would report to NTL corporate marketing director Mike Hounsell, whose position remains unchanged. The position has been created by splitting the sales and marketing director role held by Michael Boyd, who becomes director of programme management.

Somerville’s role includes promoting a complex array of technological products such as digital and interactive TV, free Internet access through broadband cable and BT’s telephone network, video-on-demand, and other new services. The whole package is advertised through J Walter Thompson using the strapline “technology tamed”.

NTL is awaiting the go-ahead for the CWC purchase from Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers, following an investigation by the Competition Commission, which submitted its recommendations to the Department of Trade and Industry on February 25.

The deal would give NTL 900,000 CWC customers and access to the 4 million homes passed by CWC cables.

In the UK, NTL has 1 million connected homes and the combined group would dwarf rival Telewest, with 1.16 million connected homes.